VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
Speaking is understood as a social interaction. Therefore, the interactional
situation determines speech behaviour to a large extent. The variability of vowels
depends, extra-linguistically, on the interactional situation and, intra-linguistically, on
the prosodic strength of a given vowel. It is argued that in more informal interactional
situations, speakers do not adopt a relaxed speaking mode, allegedly easing articulation,
but apply the processes adaquate for the given interactional situation. This
argumentation is proved by the examination of articulatory avoidance, where it is the
plan of the speaker to depart as little as possible from the neutral vocal tract configura-
tion. This purpose results in a completely unsystematic variation. Within a given
interactional situation, variation is, however, highly systematic. Consequently, concepts
like e.g. the concept of undershoot or the concept of low cost, are abandoned.
The examination of “fronting” of back vowels further corroborates this
argumentation. In Standard Austrian German, F2 displacements can be observed in the
most formal speaking task – the reading of logatomes – for the vowels /ï/ and /O/. In the
task of reading sentences, displacements of F2 can only be observed for the vowel /O/.
In spontaneous speech, the differences no longer exist. These results strongly suggest
that in Standard Austrian German, F2 displacement is neither a matter of undershoot nor
a coarticulatory phonetic detail, but a process maximising contrast in most formal
speech situations. Therefore, in any phonetic investigation, the phonology of the
analysed language has to be incorporated.
Prosodic strength is expressed by both quantity and quality. Unstressed vowels are
significantly shorter than stressed vowels, in both speaking tasks. However, no
correlation was observed between duration and either F1, F2, or F3. Therefore, duration
plays no relevant role in the qualitative change of vowels. The change in prosodic
strength affects predominantly F2, except for the vowel /A/, which shows a significantly
higher F1 in unstressed positions. It has to be emphasized that a change in prosodic
strength only changes the quality of the vowel, whilst the vowel category is unaffected.
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